XR2 Winter Rebuild

[Alex H]

All through 2011 I’ve struggled with straight-line speed. The XR2 is great on the brakes and great at carrying speed through corners, but there isn’t a lot to offer after that and several times this season I’ve found myself gaining on cars through braking and cornering, only for them to walk away on the straights. To combat this, or at least half combat it, I’ve decided to build a new engine for 2012, taking advantage of the allowed 1mm overbore within the regulations.


Picked up a block from a fellow competitor http://www.arlracing.co.uk/that had been left unused for some time!

Crankshaft not looking too bad, some scoring in places, so will require a light regrind, probably to the first degree of oversize bearings.

Bare Block

Nice, shiny, new, 1mm oversize pistons.

Got all the engineering on the block done by AMAC Engineering in Northallerton, whilst I started stipping down the car.

Interesting discovery in the sump - the baffle plates were rattling around inside, bits of broken weld everywhere!

By this time, the new block had arrived back from the engineering shop.

 

[Alex H]

Have set up the garage with a nice tidy work area, in order to commence the rebuild of the block. Just a reminder – the block has been overbored to +1mm, the maximum allowed to the current regulations. The crankshaft has also been re-ground to the first degree of undersizeness and balanced to within a small fraction of a gram.

The worst piston-rod combo was 7g out of balance

After giving the block and crank a thorough wash, started to build up the block, installing the crank shaft and new oversize bearings first, following the Haynes Ford CVH manual closely!
Next up were the four pistons (yes America, engines with less than eight pistons do exist), each one covered in a thick layer of Graphogen (other graphite based lubricants are available), compressed and installed into the block.

Little bit of Graphogen

Compressed with tool thing

Piston installed into cylinder

One piston was a bit troublesome, but went in eventually so it was time to torque up all the main caps holding the crankshaft in place, and proceed to fit the conrods to the crankshaft with their new bearing shells.

Greased up conrod bearing shell

Pistons installed and torqued up

Once all the pistons were installed, every bolt was torqued to the required tightness, some oil applied to moving parts and the engine turned over by hand to check for free movement. Fortunately there were no sticking spots or any rotation that required extra effort, hopefully this will be a freely revving engine (as free as a CVH can get anyway).
Onwards with the build, oil pump and flywheel end oil seals installed, which brought an evening of engine work to a close. The next night will be to clean up all the mating faces, removal of paint where necessary and to finish off the bottom end, ready to be connected up to it’s gearbox and installed into the car (with an uncompleted cylinder head for now).

Oil seals in place

More to follow...

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

Good so far...

*munches popcorn*

:approve:

 

[Mr Burns]

Cool mate, wish I had the knowledge to do something like that. Let me know if you need anything and I'll ask my brother as I'm pretty sure he's not keeping his.

 

[Alex H]

It does help that the CVH is the easiest engine to work on in the world. The only way I've learnt to do it is by following the Haynes manual and a couple of threads online. A year ago I couldn't do anything mechanical.

 

[Mr Burns]

All the more credit to you then dude.

 

[Alex H]

Baffle and flywheel attached.

Rusty sump given a rub-down and a coat of high temp paint.

New water pump, cambelt and tensioner.

New LuK RS Turbo clutch kit....

fitted....

New clutch release bearing

Engine and gearbox back under car ready for first attempt at mating.

Two minutes of wiggling and penetration is great success! I planned for this to take two hours.

That's as far as I got today - last pic of the even tidier (lies) workbench.

 

[.Kev.]

Love the old school Xr2, any pictures of the car?

What kind of power is the old CVH making? What class do you race in?

 

[david hodson]

The old cvh engine, did power engineering do a overbore kit with american pistons that took it over 1800cc?
back in the day

might have been a different thicker wall block in america

 

[Gaz.]

Cracking effort, hope it's reliable for you this season.

 

[TimR26]

Good work mate

Have you got any trackdays lined up yet?

 

[rosco454]

Looks like a nice build,any pics of the car its destined for? r****d spec welding in the original baffled sump is a bit alarming mind!

Cheers Ross.

 

[Gray]

Good work Alex

 

[Naith]

fantastic, thats the spirit my dear boy

 

[Alex H]

Looks like a nice build,any pics of the car its destined for? r****d spec welding in the original baffled sump is a bit alarming mind!

And some highlights of 2011: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cedms8w-jFQ

 

[Russ_16v]

Looking great mate

 

[Whiteley]

Good work, you've come along way in the past year. No better way to learn than jumping in at the deep end!

 

[jamie rigby]

geting there! heard nothing but good things about the LUK clutches kinda wish i got one instead of spending 5times as much for my Helix lol

when's your first meeting this year?

 

[Alex H]

March 31 / April 1 at Silverstone. Planning a day at the rollers in the next couple of weeks, then a couple of trackdays in Feb.

 

[Tony Hunter]

Glad to see it's coming back together Alex,good on you.

Can't wait to get our's back in and running.

 

[LIL B]

Good work, what gap did the rings have?

Interesting assembly lube choice, might have a read up on that.

 

[ado]

Nice work especially considering what you said about not being able to do this a year ago. My freshly rebuilt MX5 engine had a oil pump failure soon after but it was just unlucky.

What power you hoping it'll give?

 

[Alex H]

I'm hoping for a big old 90 at the wheels - it's more the driveability I'm after though. Bogg Brothers in Malton are the local carb specialists so they'll be getting the job of setting it up on the rollers.

 

[Alex H]

Not a lot done today. No engine crane means you have to be a bit creative..

Got there in the end... Rust treated and gave the battery tray a lick of Rosso Red to brighten it up a bit - was looking a bit tired.

Got a shaft and tie-bar (not pictured) done too.

Then started stripping the head ready for cleaning (when I find my valve removing tool).

 

[Waitey]

When you go to Boggies give me a shout. I need to have the carbs in the MK Indy re set up.

 

[Alex H]

When you go to Boggies give me a shout. I need to have the carbs in the MK Indy re set up.

Will do, probably going to be first week of Feb.